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"What! can you look behind you without turning your head?" replied Piccolissima, with an air which probably appeared to the fly not very sensible; for, shrugging up his right wing disdainfully, he returned to his sugar candy. After a little reflection, she looked down again, and perceived, to her great astonishment, upon the stick of candy, which was of an amber color, a drop of water.
The wings of one of them remained stuck together on its back, and it made a great effort to extend them. Delighted at the discovery of companions in her solitude, companions, too, whose language she could understand, Piccolissima was eager to make their acquaintance; so she offered them her stick of candy.
"Insects of the order hymenopteres; if you ever learn Greek, Piccolissima, you will know that that means insects with membranous wings. Imagine what a fine thing it is to understand Greek. Every word contains in itself many others. For example, honey bees have a name still longer than the others; they are called mellificae. What do you say to that?
They climbed backward up the side of their citadel, and in spite of his desperate struggles, carried the poor insect, writhing with torture, to one of their little air holes. Piccolissima saw upon his wounds some drops of the sharp poison thrown by these terrible hunters, and the crowds of ants soon hid the sufferer from her eyes, which she gladly turned away from such a sight.
Piccolissima, who was always alarmed at a big voice, trembling, turned round and stared at her brother, who, shouting with laughter, made a pirouette, jumped over the balcony, which was near the ground, into the garden.
As if attracted by the song, these insects flew in swarms to the flower-bed. Very soon it was evident that they were heavier when they went away than when they came. Two large, round, red and yellow, or rather golden balls loaded their brilliant brown thighs. Some of them plunged into the bosom of a lily. Raising herself on tiptoe, Piccolissima kept them in view.
When Piccolissima had counted one hundred, she drew from a very small box, which was a family treasure, some minikin pins, and stuck one of them into the cushion on which she was seated, intending thus to mark every hundred that she counted; but she had not counted thus half a thousand, before she found that breath and knowledge failed her; in truth, she did not know enough of arithmetic to count the eyes of a fly.
Piccolissima had hardly uttered these words, when the fly, whose antennae were longer than usual, and were turned towards the little prattler, gave such a leap that Mademoiselle Tom Thumb trembled. The wings of the insect fluttered, and made a little sharp noise, which, however, had nothing terrible in it, and Piccolissima perceived that her companion was laughing.
It was there that Madam Tom Thumb used to embroider with her elder daughters; and there she placed Piccolissima, allowing her to run at large, only recommending to her prudence and discretion.
The busiest carried in their mandibles, caressed with their legs and their antennae, licked with their delicate tongues, exposed to the sun, or carried quickly into the shade certain white balls which Piccolissima took at first for grains of wheat, because they had the form and size; but she was satisfied at last that these were the children of the ants in swaddling clothes.
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